where are those car keys again?

i found this woman's blog from some other blog i read. it's hilarious.

i thought i would post this one blurb she wrote back in July 2004. i find this it true even if you're only going in for your annual exam.

The obstetrician put a gloved hand (or several digits thereof) inside my vagina to look for her lost car keys. Not finding them there, she apparently decided my rectum was the next most likely spot. Only after repeatedly clenching my sphincter failed to produce a telltale jingling did she grudgingly admit she'd probably left them up someone else's ass by mistake.

420

what was i doing at 4:20 on 4/20, you ask?

PAINTING MY ASS OFF!!

closing; painting

i'm a little behind, but i hope that's understandable since we're packing and painting and generally trying not to kill one another with stir sticks and plastic drop cloths.

we finally gained access to our condo last Tuesday. everything went without a hitch, except the whole "getting the keys" bit. the seller's crazy real estate agent didn't show up, and even if she had, she had left our condo keys back at her office. it really wasn't a big deal because a) i had totally forgotten that we were supposed to get keys, and b) her office is right by our apartment.

the good news about closing so early is that we have 2 weeks to paint, move some stuff in, and generally worry about where everything is going to go. we have very little negative space in our condo, with exception of the closets (duh). the only wall space we have in our kitchen is going to be used for a table. so now i'm wondering, where the hell are we going to put the garbage can? i should have become an architect.

so we got in there on thursday and started painting. the living room is daredevil, the bedroom is, uh, blue (can't find the paint chip), the bathroom is shell flower (yellow), and the second bedroom will be catnip after today. then we're DONE!! no more painting ever again!!


living room

master bedroom

bathroom

second bedroom waiting for paint

tagged (from april)

this is from april. i started to fill it out, but got sidetracked and never went back to it. until now. sometimes i like to finish what i start

woo-hoo! someone still reads my blog!

First, the rules:

1. Each blogger answers the questions about themselves.

2. Then tag five people. Make sure to let them know!


What I was doing 10 years ago?:

1. living ann arbor, trying to graduate from college (one more year to go at that point)

2. not dating any one guy for the first time in my life

3. going to the club in Royal Oak a few times a week

4. running with Tracy at the Arb. ah, the Arb.

5. working full time with Jeff, The Best Boss in the World



Five things on my to-do list today:

1. ship off those two remaining Simpsons figures that i sold on ebay

2. open our condo association's business banking account

3. sit on the couch and hope this horrible headache goes away

4. pray i get my period (it's 1.5 days late, and it's NEVER late. ever.)

5. figure out my finances and pay off a credit card or two


Five Snacks I enjoy:

1. cucumbers with hummus

2. any fruit except melon. all melon is the fruit of the devil.

3. yogurt with fruit in it

4. popcorn

5. ICE CREAM!


Five Things I would do if I were a billionaire:

1. pay off all of my (and my hubby, mom, sister, close friends) debt

2. buy up a block of land in a really expensive area in chicago and build 1.5 story bungalows, like from the 20s, and sell them for really cheap to families who can't afford a house in a nice area.

3. buy my mom a 1969 mustang.

4. build a house in europe somewhere and move the hell away from this horribly corrupt country (fuck you, bush)

5. Invest and save the rest.


Five of my bad habits:

1. I curse like a MOFO!

2. my sweet tooth is more like a sweet fang

3. I chew on my fingers all the time. When I'm annoyed, anxious, sad, mad, thinking too much, etc.

4. i dream of exercising, but just can't seem to get my butt out there

5. i interrupt people when they're talking. it annoys even me.


Five places I have lived:

1. milwaukee, wi

2. scranton, pa

3. tecumseh, mi

4. ann arbor, mi

5. chicago, il

there's more, but it says only 5.


Five jobs I’ve had:

1. Games by James. when we were bored, we would put up the dart board and sometimes actually hit the board. i was 16 and handling money.

2. the limited. as in snooty yuppie clothing. i started in 1991 and they were for the older crowd, like 30s, and they sold catsuits.

3. zingermann's in ann arbor. we need one here in chicago. BAD.

4. beverage manager for festival booths in detroit. i've worked the TasteFest and the Detroit Festival for the Arts. 18 hour days aren't that bad when you're 22.

5. crate and barrel. it's the only job where breaking glass is in your job description.


What I’d like to be doing in 25 years:

I’ll be holly crap 59!!! hopefully i'll be a doctor in some capacity. and hopefully that will have not ruined my marriage. i'd like to live in a house in the city, have a yard and a garage and a basement. i'll still have the friends i have now and maybe a few new ones. other than that, there's really nothing much i want.

I tag... anyone who wants to be introspective.

the earth moves

scott and i wake up last night to our bed shaking and the doors in the hutch rattling. then it dawned on me... we're having an earthquake. scott thought that it might have been the neighbors downstairs or a huge truck driving 60mph through the alley, but i mentioned that it felt like the earthquake i felt a few years ago. we both used the facilities and then went back to sleep. i checked the time: 4:38am.

the first thing i did when i woke up at 6 was check the trib online. sure enough, the "breaking news" was "earthquake felt in chicago area." woo-hoo! what midwesterner knows her earthquakes?

read the article here.

a few years ago, in 2004, i happened to be awake at 1am when my apartment started swaying rythmicly. now, this is nothing strange to this apartment, considering big buses usually cause it rattle a bit, but this was much more pronounced and much longer than just a bus going down the street. plus, it was 1am... there hadn't been a bus in hours. turned out it was an earthquake in Utica, IL. so now i can say i've been through more earthquakes in chicago than i had been when i visited california. there i just experienced one.

life path?

i noticed a few weeks ago that most of the blogs i read on a daily basis are of mothers and their children. and there's nothing really special about any of them except the usual trials and tribulations of having a child (or children). some of the blogs i read are from ER docs and nurses. so what does this tell me?

either i want to be a doctor or i want to have kid.

(i'd like to have a doctor's kid so i wouldn't have to work anymore, but i don't think scott has such ambitions, so it'll have to be a doctor of words.)

anyway, i also realized (a long time ago) that i hadn't made any long-range plans beyond graduating from college. i never really thought about getting married or having spawn. i did see myself having a successful career, which, surprisingly, isn't something you can really plan for. "ok, i want to be a hot-shot ad exec." bam! you're in publishing. uh, not quite what i wanted. but i think my talent as an artist and the career of choice had some distance between them. the closest i've come to being an ad exec is making Booklist Online ads. sigh.

ok, so what do i do with my life? i've been taking these classes of a science-type nature and i'm wondering if i'll really do anything with them. it would seem like such a waste to NOT put them to good use, but what are my options? i tell people i want to get in a UIC master's program for microbiology. uh, then what? i can see myself applying. it's not a "what if i don't get accepted," it's more like a "what if i get in?" we're going to have a mortgage and insurance and assessments to pay. not that i have a snowball's chance in hell of getting in, really. i may have mentioned this before, but 7 in 150 got in last year. and i still have organic chem and physics to tackle. this chem class is wearing me down. but i can't see myself NOT taking any classes. i can't see myself NOT trying to go for that white-coated brass ring.

but what do i do with it?

do i really want to do this program? what would it get me? a PhD in Lab Rat? or do i want to just go the whole hog and apply for med school? can you imagine? i forget to convert images from RGB to CMYK when i do a catalog... can you imagine me with a scalpel in hand and the ability to cut into a human being? "nurse, where's that sponge?" they should make biodegradable sponges.

anyway, medicine or research? or just a lab jockey? i've always thought that being the one to do the tests on someone who has a white blood cell count of 980,000 would be really totally cool. "test this one for ebola. be careful!"

some people ask, "oh, do you want to become a nurse?" NO! if i wanted to be treated like the gum that doctor's wipe off their shoes, i'd become an artist. oh, wait. although my friend's cousin is a NICU nurse and that seems really rewarding.

i guess the bottom line is... i just don't feel like i'm contributing anything to society. and i've done too much schooling to throw it away on breeding. if we could squeeze out 4 or 5 in a sitting and let them squirm around on their own while i go off to work, then that would be fine. but no. someone has to watching them... ALL THE TIME. and daycare is so goddamn expensive. of course, if i became a doctor, then it wouldn't matter, would it? unless my malpractice insurance was so high i could only afford Top Ramen.

i wish i could make a decision before my chem quiz on monday. sigh.

i just don't know.

inspection tips

we had our first inspection today. we met mike, from H.I.T. Inc, who was incredibly professional and knew what he was doing. our realtor (OR) was there, as was the developer's agent (DA). here are some tips to consider when you're doing a home/condo inspection:

1. let the inspector lead the inspection. i know, DA, that you've been in this condo many times and that you've sold out the whole building. but we're not here for you. we're here so this guy, Mike, can tell us what your people have neglected to do.

2. if you want to make a punch list, DA, don't talk on your phone or to OR or to the construction guys while the inspector is trying to talk to us. if you want to write crap on your list (because it needs to get done as our closing is 4 days away), then shut up and pay attention to what Mike is saying. plus, it's really hard to hear when you're bellowing in your phone in an empty apartment.

3. if we (the potention buyers) are now choosing to relay information between you, DA, and Mike, don't give us the brush off. it IS a big deal when 4 of the 5 outlets in the 2nd bedroom don't work. it IS a big deal that the whirlpool tub doesn't work. it IS a big deal that the flashing on the roof goes no where. and you're not the inspector, are you?

4. if you're nice to the inspector, he'll tell you more than you probably need to know. like putting a drain pan under your washer and dryer to prevent damage to your hardwood floors. and to never, ever wear stiletto heals on hardwood.

5. take pictures of what's really messed up. and ask as many questions as you want, to your realtor and the inspector, anyway.

we finally saw the storage room, which is in another building. it's like a closet, about 4 x 5, nothing to write home about. but now that i've been in there again and had a good look around, i'm not as worried about not fitting enough crap in there. and our kitchen rocks.

here's the short list of things that were wrong:
1. furnace room floor not finished. as in, laminate tiles stuck to basically a dirty floor to cover up a misplaced drainage pipe.

2. pipes from furnace to the outside world not sealed very well.

3. ice maker in refrigerator not working. yes, i said "ice maker," as in "no more of those annoying plastic trays that drip water all over your feet as you try to get most of it to the freezer but then spill half of it while you're manuvering the door open and then get really tiny, crappy, cubes."

4. the roof was crappily put together by illegal immigrants. actually, our whole place was, but if it rains, our cabinets won't fall off the walls. i hope.

5. upon filling the huge Jacuzzi tub we realized that the jets don't work. no whirring and purring. boo.

6. seriously, 4 out of 5 of the outlets in the 2nd BR don't work and 3 out of 5 of the ones in the master BR don't work. plus, when you try to plug something into them, they give into the wall a little, so they're not anchored to anything. again, cheap labor.

7. crack in a window in the master bedroom (which i measured and it's 11 x 11. bleh.). i saw Utgar (the handyman), take a window from the unit across the hall (unoccupied, obviously) and bring it into our unit. i laughed out loud when i saw that. brilliant.

8. couldn't test the washer and dryer because the gas nor the water is turned on.

9. this is the best one: of the four a/c units on the roof, none of them are labeled. they are all rated too high amp-wise, for any of the units in this building, and OUR A/C ISN'T EVEN HOOKED UP IN OUR BREAKER BOX. when Mike tried to explain that to Utgar (after DA said, "i don't even understand what you said") he opened the box and ran his hands next to one of only three things labeled in the box... no wires coming out. nothing. not a thing. so even if it were warm enough to test the A/C, nothing would happen. no juice. no zap. nothing.

so they have a lot to do in 4 days. actually, they have 30 days, and really, i don't expect the A/C to be done anytime soon, since it's not going to get above 65 to test it anyway. i'm just wondering how one runs electrical from an over-ampped A/C compressor to our little ol' fuse box. maybe it's best i not know.
hole in the furnace floor


whirlpool, not whirlpooling


the east side of our cool kitchen. that's DA.


the west side of our kitchen.

condo update

here's the scoop:

we close on tuesday, Tax Day, at 11am, downtown at some title company (of course). after we sign our life away, we get the keys and then go "kick the tires" as my boss said. since no one is currently living there, we'll get to go in and paint and measure and move stuff in ASAP.

the fun comes on the 25th, when the movers are scheduled. the nice thing about this time is that we're one apartment moving to one condo. last time, it was two apartments moving into one. we've already gotten rid of a lot of stuff, but every time i find something else i want to get rid of, it goes on the table on the back porch. i had these delusions of a yard sale, but i don't think i'm going to have the energy, with moving and my chem final, to arrange that. so i've been trying to pawn my old possessions off on other people.

who wants a litter locker?
does anyone want some old bedding?
how's about a Batz Maru lunch box and a set of playing cards?

i've put some stuff up on ebay, but i'm having trouble with people actually paying their auctions. i had one guy totally flake out and another hasn't written me back since i told him i couldn't combine shipping on two rather large packages. oh, well.

maybe later i'll post a list of stuff i have and see if my dedicated readers would like any of it.

does anyone want a butcher block kitchen table and 4 chairs?